Draft Six: Vendors Garifuna or Garifuna themes- Related Audio
Visual Materials and some Miskito Related Audio Visual Materials. Both the
Miskitos and the Garifunas are mixed Indigenous peoples and descendants of
Africans who came to the New World through a variety of manners.
Part I- Originally Prepared for SALALM's Audio Visual Committee
Date
6/11/2014
By Wendy
Griffin
This guide
includes Videos and Movies, CD’s, Maps,including those in books and on
websites, and Photos.
Videos and
Movies
Garifuna in
Peril movie and the El Espiritu de Mi mama movie
(www.garifunainperilmovie.com). The main site is now www.garifunainperil.com This website is where you can buy the movie
El Espiritu de Mi Mama, described in the video section, and my article Garifuna
Immigrants Invisible is available for free as a download from this website.
This article tells all the reasons the Garifunas are famous, including the
whole history of their civil rights work since the end of the 19th
century in all countries where the Garifunas live. The owners of this website
are in Los Anglees. There are 18 cuts of Garifuna music and many styles of Garifuna
dancing in Garifuna in Peril, while the movie el Espiritu de Mi mama has the
dances of dugu and also punta and part of the ceremony of the bath of the soul
and also the visit to the buyei to see what is the matter. Both movies are
partly set in Los Angeles and partly in Honduras, Garifuna in peril in Triunfo
de la Cruz and la Ensenada and El Espiritu de mi Mama in Plaplaya. Triunfo
delaCruz is the town that was recently in the InterAmerican Human rights Court
in Costa rica on 20 may 2014 for violation of the rights of the Garifunas
there, a case 10 years in the making. Many Garifuna leaders-Luis Green,
minister of SEDINAFROH, Celeo Alvarez director of ODECO, Aurelio Martinez the
singer and former Congressman, Sandra green former Garifuna representative to
bilingual education and wife of Dr. Santiago Ruiz, Garifuna anthropologist and
president of UNAH-Tela, plus Roberto
Marin in the movie Discover the Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve, and the mixed
Black English speaker and Miskito, Doña Florinda twice governor of the
Mosquitia during the contra years are all from families from Plaplaya. Both
Garifuna in Peril and El Espiritu de Mi Mama are also available through
Amazon.com and for overseas shipping, it is cheaper to buy through Amazon.com.
I have
recommended these videos for the issue of medical anthropology (traditional
people in western medicine settings like Los Angeles and New York), for seeing
positive behavior relating to AIDS(mothers talking to daughters, daughters
talking to boyfriends), for bilingual education and the issue of immigration
and transgenerational passing of knowledge and languages, and the issue of
languages, and resources and land for those resources, for Garifuna dances and
music, and Garifuna religious ceremonies. I also think it has the tenderest
love story between two African American people I have seen, a big change from
much of the objectivization of women as sex objects more common in some modern
genres of videos accompanied by music, including those by Garifuna artists. I also recommend it to people working with
African American or Latin American young people interested into getting into
film, and it was in fact at the Bronze Lens film Festival in Atlanta which is
about that. I am excited partly because
the co-director, co-writer, co-producer, and star of the movie makes his living
that pays the bills as a plumber in Los Angeles. It shows that even though your
day job may not be one that you always want to do, at least it pays the bills
while you try to do something to make the world a better place or more
beautiful or something you can show to your children with pride even if it does
not make a lot of money. This is often true of art. That this film has won
three awards in the US, including Best Docu Drama in Tuscon, Arizona not a
place right now famous for being pro-Hispanic or Black, and one in Europe, makes this movie, the most
recognized film in Honduran history. I also talked to a number of people at
SALALM about the interesting decision to recognize Garifuna in Peril, which the
directors, the writers, the actors, and the musicians live in Los Angeles,
Califonina and significant parts of it were filmed in Los Angeles, as a one of
the top 25 foreign films of 2013. What does that description say about Identity,
and who is my paisano, and who is
American in the US?
I was asked
if the Garifunas are concerned about sex tourism. Out of the four videos that
were on the Garifuna in Peril website, there were videos about a Garifuna
pregnant by an American soldier who leaves and she is left as a poor single mom
(El Espiritu de Mi Mama),there is a video about tourist hotels trying to hire
pretty Garifuna girls like a Barbie, and the girl’s brother beats him up (Garifuna
in Peril)and there is a video about a movie producer who tries to put the moves
on the wife of a Garifuna trying to interest him in a movie in Dangriga,Belize
(A Night in Dangriga) . What do you see as the subtheme of these movies?
Aziatic’s video
A
complete list of Belizean Garifuna organizations in Los Angeles and contact
information is found on the website of Belizean punta rock star Aziatic (www.belizeanartist.com). He was a
promoter for Andy Palacios who won the world music expo in 2007, and other
Punta Rock artists and is a gifted musician in his own right, with one of his
songs being in the Garifuna in Peril movie. His video looks very thoughtful. He
has also recorded two CD’s of music. He lives in Los Angeles. His video was
sometimes for sale on the Garifuna in Peril website, but is not currently.
Garistore.com
--Many Garifuna videos, Music CD’s, Garifuna books.
Garinet.com garitv.com
garistore.com All owned by Jorge
Garifuna, a Garifuna website designer in the
Los Angeles area. All the Garifuna music you can want in almost genre is
available here. For GariTV he produced the history of sambo Creek and the
history of Corrozal both communities in the La Ceiba area of Honduras which are
discussed in Keri Brondo’s 2013 Land Grab from University of Arizona Press
about the land problems of the Garifunas of Sambo Creek and Hog keys. Also on
Garistore.com is a new book by Virgilio Lopez on the role of women in Garifuna
culture, which should also add a Garifuna point of view to Keri Brondo’s
analysis. Truth out and Mexican newspapers recently had articles about US plans
for a military base in the Hog keys and at other North coast Honduras locations
in violation of the 1850 Clayton Bulwer Treaty between the US and Great Britain
which prohibits the establishment of fortified places by either the US or Great
Britain in Central America. Also very interesting is his video the history of
punta, the Garifuna’s most famous dance. Asimilar dance is done in the Congo,
such as by the dance group Umoja in Pittsburgh, PA. A similar dance is also
done by Jamaicans where it was known as black and white dance. It is danced at
a wake and a one year ceremony after prayers in Honduras. In Garifuna it is
called Banguity, New Life. The Bantus of South Africa also dance at wakes and
after final prayers at the end of one year and they call the dance also new
life. New life can refer to beginning life as an ancestor, or the spirit of the
deceased being reborn,often when a new young descendant is born,similar to the
beliefs of the Gullah people in the Carolinas.he had the video of Garifuna
dances prepared for the UNESCO nomination process as a World Masterpeice, which
they were out of last time I looked. They are very good at answering emails.
Amazon.com
has a number of good Garifuna books, including some you can get nowhere else
like Tomas Avila’s book, Black Carib-Garifunas
and also an interesting mix of Garifuna music, including Andy Palacios (his
album Watiña is described as the most critically album in any genre of 2007,
which is amazing for an album in an Amerindian language), and Umalali and
Parranda from StoneTree records, and some videos including Garifuna in peril
and El Espiritu de Mi mama . Just search Garifuna. Some Garifuna artists have
their own page in Amazon.com like Aurelio Martinez. Tomas Alberto Avila’s book
has several articles and a M.A. thesis related to Garifuna music and dance
studied from different angles, and they have the advantage of knowing what the
words mean. Amazon.com sells both English books and Spanish language books. Some
rare Honduran books like Paul House’s study of Tawahka medicinal plants was
only sold on Amazon.com and was not readily available in Honduras. You can click on the songs on the Amazon.com website and you can hear a few minutes of each one. This gives access to a lot of music for ethnomusicology students.
Flickr.com
They have
8,000 Garifuna photos. They also have Katherine Trujillo Hall’s TED talk about
her Birthing project. She is an afro-Honduran from Honduras but now lives in
California. She points out that Honduran statistics in general are better on
maternal health and infant surival, than US statistics for African Americans.
Garifuna midwives like Yaya have much better statistics than the Honduran
average.
Blog of
OFRANEH—www.ofraneh.wordpress.com
There are
several videos on this official blog of the Organizacion Fraternal Negro de
Honduras (OFRANEH) and they change. One
was on the Banana Coast, the Canadian company which bought and tore down the
Garifuna neighborhood of Rio Negro to put in acruise dock, and which has
housing projects which they are selling to Canadian retirees in nearby Campo Vista, in Santa Fe, Guadelupe and
Betulia. The idea of the cruise dock is opening to attract people to see the
area on the cruise boats and then buy property and stay, but in the end the
shallow water dock may really be a dock for gas and oil exploration and the
cruise boat dock in Puerto Castilla. There are layers and layers of issues with
this. Here is the Garifuna take. Another video is on property and specifically
the World Bank project PATH. The PATH project of the World Bank and the
Honduran government has its own website if you want their point of view. New
videos are available about the issue of petroleum exploration off the shore of
Honduras by BP and Chevron which will include the sea near the Bay islands
including the Mesoamerican Coral Reef, the second largest coral reef in the
world.
ODECO, another
Garifuna organization, has a blog and it
has photos but generally not videos. ODECO is the author of the book Primer
Cumbre Mundial de AfroDescendientes, which was held in 2011 in La Ceiba.This
book has the declaration of this meeting, which was also on the SEDINAFROH
website, but that part of the Honduran government no longer has a website, and
is no longer a Ministry.
HondurasWeekly.com
This
newspaper often has videos, which are either in the center of the paper, or
also the little photographs at the top of the newspaper are videos. Recently a
featured video was of James Lowell a Garifuna drummer and Garifuna language
teacher in New York and Lucy Blanco a Garifuna Jazz singer in New York who has
her own Facebook page. See below James Lowell as his own producer of a movie.
Because the editor of HondurasWeekly.com has spent a lot of time looking at
choosing videos for the newspaper over the difficult period of 2013 and early
2014, he would be a good person to ask where are good videos on a certain topic.
Some online newspapers have ways to count the hits on specific articles, to see
which ones are generating a lot of interest. For example, the first article on
Garifuna in Peril in HondurasWeekly.com had gotten over 5,000 hits specifically
for that article, which is very unusual for that newspaper. This newspaper also
has my articles on the flow of drugs from the Mosquitia and along the Coast to
end up in the Guatemalan border region and its impacts on the Garifunas, the
Miskitos, the Maya Chorti land problems, and the special targeting of bilingual
education teachers for being murdered. It also has articles on is Honduras safe
for volunteers and is the Trujillo area safe for foreigners which includes
aspects of the Bajo Aguan struggle and the Requiem for two Afro-Honduran towns
related to the Sandy Bay where the Marjorie Merriweather Post heiress was
killed and Guadelupe a Garifuna town west of Trujillo and articles related to
the Garifuna’s troubles with Miguel Facusse in Limon and the World Bank loans. There
is also one on new public health issues like homicide as the number one cause
of death, the destruction of the environment, problems with seeds, etc. Other
reporters also reported on gangs, and on the election of November 2013.
Honduran
Newspaper videos and photos and maps
Honduran
Spanish language newspapers like El heraldo and La prensa are now often doing
videos as part of their online coverage. This is partly as a reaction to very strict
libel laws in Honduras. If they have video of the Honduran president saying
something in a public speech or press interview, then they are not in trouble
that they are misquoting him. This is what he said. The Honduran president has
his own website, too JuanOrlando.com.
When the Honduran newspapers are doing investigative reporting such as the
El Heraldo May 2014 series on the problems in the Honduran Institute of
Property, they are meticulous in their documentation—this folder number,
(expediente), this date, this office, this property, etc. then they state their
conclusions, such as this island Barbareta island (which I believe the whole
island is a protected area) has been sold three times, it was registered, and
the price was L10,000 ($500) which is
ridiculously low for the Bay islands where beach front property can cost $1
million the acre. El Heraldo is also where I have read that 30% of the Honduran
territory is in the process of being given as concessions for mines. Even if that was the only problem, that would
explain why 70% of immigrants currently heading to the US are Hondurans
fleeing, including thousands with families ending up in Pennsylvania. El Heraldo
has the story why they are ending up specifically in Pennsylvania. The Honduran
newspaper La Prensa covered the Garifuna’s InterAmerican Human rights Court
case in Costa Rica.
Some
Honduran TV news shows are also on the Internet like Abriendo Brecha. This
technique of Honduran news over the Internet
is geared towards the 1 million Hondurans now in the US. This is often
Interactive, as emails or tweets from Hondurans in the US sent to the TV show
are sometimes read over the air.
Negro
This is a
set of interviews of Blacks in Central America and the Caribbean, including in
Honduras, about the issue of being Black in Hispanic countries and being a
Black Hispanic in the US. By an Afro-Panamanian film director. This DVD was brought to my attention by the
editor of www.latinalista.com who also has an extensive section on Hispanic
topic videos, and so would be another person to ask what is happening interesting
in Hispanic videos and who is producing them and who is selling them. This newspaper was also the source that I saw
the video of Bill Moyers interviewing the Hispanic law professor from UC
Berkely about the book “Dog Whistle Politics” which I told people at SALALM was
probably essential reading for understanding this hate mentality towards
Hispanics and Blacks currently in the US.
Bill Moyers also has a lot of videos on his own website www.billmoyers.com and a lot of them are
about race relations in the US. For example one recent one was on Reparations
related to slavery, and, in fact, the Island where the Garifunas are from St.
Vincent, are one of the countries leading the fight in the Caribbean about
reparations related to the genocide of the Garifunas, as well as slavery. The
fact that Afro-Latinos in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil were ignored in their original
protests are part of what is fueling the massive protests related to the World
Cup in Brazil.
HondurasThisWeek-HondurasThisWeek.com
(videos)
Honduras
This Week used to be a newspaper, and then it was a newspaper and a video
production company, and now after the death of the father who founded the
newspaper, it is just a video production company. Although only a few videos
are highlighted on their website, which has full contact information, in fact
they have been producing videos in Honduras for over 20 years, and if they do
not have the rights to distribute it, at least they know what videos they made
and who does have the rights to them. Some of their videos include those made
for the Dinant Corporation of Miguel Facusse, uncle of former Honduran
President Carlos Flores Facusse, whose companies are mentioned in World Bank
Omnibudsman reports of 2014, which generated New York Times articles, and are
often mentioned in HondurasWeekly.com and on the blog of OFRANEH and in books
like those from Food First. He has a good Wikipedia article and there is an
official biography of him on his DINANT Corporation website. His land in Punta Farallones is also
mentioned in a Wikileaks document about drug airplane on the land stripping at
Punta Farallones and that landing strip also shows up on the ZEDE Map for ZEDE
Sico Paulaya on the official Honduran government ZEDE or Model City website http://zede.gob.hn His DINANT Corporation is also a receiver of
substantial loans from FICOHSA a Central American bank in which the World Bank
has an equity stake. Those reports are linked to the New York Times article
about the loans to DINANT. The President of FICOHSA is currently the head of
the Latin American businessmen’s association and in the meeting in Tela
Honduras in 2014, on land taken from the Garifunas under difficult
circumstances, in a boutique hotel with a new 18 hole golf course in the
protected area of Punta Sal National Park in an area protected by the RAMSAR
treaty regarding wetlands, the current Honduran president and she invited the
other Latin American business and political leaders to follow their system they
are using in Honduras to stimulate development in their own countries. FICOHSA
recently absorbed Citibank Honduras, so now it has even more assets for these
types of projects. The video of the
Corozo (American oil palm) project of Miguel Facusse’s DINANT Corporation has a
lot of stories behind it which have not been published yet. This corozo (American oil palm) project
includes Pech Indians and Garifunas, and the phrase starvation wages does not
even begin to cover the labor issues and payment issues of this project, which were
more like debt slavery, had not only
World Bank support but support of SNV the Dutch Corporation and international
and national anthropologists and sociologists. If the Pech had received even
the amount of benefits related to one of the fancy cars with tinted windows
associated with chauffeuring the World Bank consultants around it would have
been nice, but I assure you not even all the workers of the Pech in all the
years of the project made enough money combined to equal the car. This was part
of a $10 million project. It actually gave some of the Pech marital and other
family problems and may yet give them land problems related to loan sharking of
their wages for having been involved with the project. This video would be
useful to see what spin can do for you. An Argentinian film director was
brought to help make it. No expense was spared in making the video while the
Pech workers starved and their children had trouble finishing their schooling.
The stated purpose of making the video is to export this project to other Latin
American countries which have American oil palms.
The types of complaints of the Pech with
DINANT Corporation’s project are not
heard with MOPAWI’s ojon or batana project in the Mosquitia with a Canadian
company that makes batana shampoo. Ojon is the Miskito name for corozo. Batana
is made from the seed, while the Miskitos get to eat the fruit of the ojon,
which they make into porridge and can also be used to make “Manteca”, a type of
vegetable lard. The stories of the people in the Guadelupe Canrey area near
Trujillo who were encouraged to plant African palms, but then it takes 5 years
for them to produce anything, and what do the people eat in the meantime?
According to news reports, they may also lose the land before they harvest any
of the oil palms, because the government is cancelling certain types of land titles, not issuing
land titles they promised to extended, and changing the laws, both nationally,
but especially in the ZEDE or Model Cities. See the website www.zede.gob.hn for laws and maps. The
struggle of the people in the Lower Aguan is covered in First Food’s book
Grabbing Power.
The owners
of Honduras This Week video also have in their offices the entire bound
collection of Honduras This Week the newspaper begun before 1992, which as of
2013 is no longer on the Internet, but had been online 1995 to 2013. This
newspaper had unusually detailed articles about the Honduran environmental
movement and environmental NGO’s, the Honduran Indian and Garifuna movements,
issues with land laws, and issues about foreigners in Honduras, especially
foreigners and the law, a whole special legal column, information on all the
Museum collections in Honduras, some studies related to Honduran archaeology
including issues related to Copan ruinas and the White City (Ciudad blanca),
bilingual intercultural education, Honduran oral literature, especially that
related to rainforest animals and analysis of African origins of some stories,
crafts, folkdances, food, popular music, patron saint fairs, some commodity
stories like coffee, oranges, African palms,
street children, analysis of neoliberal economic policies and other
Honduran book reviews, tourism in key areas like Copan Ruinas and the Bay Islands,
some early articles on Honduran gangs, effects and recovery after Hurricane
Mitch, lots of photos of the ethnic groups, the extradiction of real estate
salesman American Arnold Morris etc. A
number of my articles from Honduras this Week have migrated to other websites, including
the one on Black English speaking churches in Honduras, and links to them are
found on the Stanford Teacher’s Corner and in Wikipedia articles like on the
Los Horcones Massacre. At least 5
writers for Honduras This Week eventually also published books including W. E.
Gutman and Melanie Wetzel both of whose books are sold through Amazon.com,
Marco Carceres whose books are available on HondurasWeekly.com, Erling Duss,
and Wendy Griffin. One of W. E. Gutman’s book on Human rights in Honduras
published in 2000 although he borught all the 200 copies he had published in
Honduras to the States, continue to show up elsewhere as still being for sale.
The
official Southern Command (southcom) website of the US military in Latin
America and the Caribbean. This has
maps, and videos, in fact the State Department and Southcom have their own
youtube channel. They say they have 4 programs a day. I recommend to understand
the whole US military policy in the area from the Americans’ side to see also
the Africacom (Africa Command) website and the Joint Task Force Bravo website
and the award of Minerva research grants through the Department of Defense to
US universities including the Centroamerica Indigena grant in Honduras, for
which related maps are described below. The US Embassy in Tegucigalpa and the US
Department of State also have extensive websites related to Honduras and
especially the question of Honduran laws and foreigners involved with the
Honduran legal system.
Telesur,
the Venezuelan TV’s answer in Spanish to CNN.
They have
been following the Garifuna case in the InterAmerican Human rights
Court,including a live report of a reporter the day of the hearing 20 May 2014,
the issue of the Honduran campesinos who just had their land titles cancel, the
Lencas of Rio Blanco. Some of these appear on their website, and also on
Youtube, such as the Causa Justa show segment about Garifunas, called Tierra Negra,
and also on their facebook page of Causa Justa which shows the photos of the
Rio Blanco Lenca edition.
Cable TV
shows
Antonieta
Maximo one of the Afro-Honduran authors discussed at SALALM 2014, had for about
7 years a cable TV show in new York called Conversando con Antonieta Maximo. (See
more information about Antonieta’s CD, book, etc. contact information to get
them below). Valentin Murphy another New York Garifuna has had a TV show called
the Central American Show on cable TV in New York. He has also had Internet
sites like Honduras New York. Some of the shows shown on the Central American
Show can then be shown in Honduras on CableVision Cristales, a Garifuna owned
cable company which has a local access TV channel in Trujillo, Honduras. That
Cable TV show has its own videos, but they probably just tape over them.
4. Videos
available at the store in the Bronx, listed on BeingGarifuna.com such as the
Tribute to Don Marasa.
For
example, after the fame of Belizean Paranda singers and composers like Paul
Nabor, the Honduran Garifunas have produced a video as a Tribute to Don Marasa
(Marcelino Fernández), a 90 year paranda composer and player who was born in Stann
Creek, Belize and then moved to Honduras when he was 8 years old. He formed a
group Libaña Marasa. Now it is his grandchildren who play Garifuna music in
Santa Fe, Honduras and in the US. The grandchildren have produced several CD’s
which are for sale in Trujillo and a video was produced interviewing him and
famous Trujillo Garifuna musicians like Los Menudos and Takia sang songs he
composed. I think in 2012 a tribute concert was held in New York of Don
Marasa’s music with him present. The
video tribute on Don Marasa was one of the top 5 Garifuna videos selling in the
Bronx,, according to www.BeingGarifuna.com.
US
Garifunas also made a CD of the music of
Los Menudos, a traditional Garifuna music group in Trujillo, Honduras led by
paranda guitar playing Francisco “Pancho” David,just called Los menudos
Dedicado a Yadira Domo.
In New
York and in Los Angeles, Garifunas have also formed live traditional Garifuna
dance groups with handmade instruments like drums and maracas. These groups present several times a year
during community events like the Honduran Central American Parade in the Bronx,
Garifuna-American Heritage month celebrations in New York, and Christmas
shows. Videos are often made of these
and are sold. For example, the video of
the Honduran Parade of 2010 was one of the top 5 best videos sold in the music
store in the Bronx that carries Garifuna videos according to BeingGarifuna.com.
People also like to take photos of Garifuna music and dance, with over 8,000
Garifuna photos on www.Flickr.com. See
Being Garifuna.com’s website for the address and name of the store that sells
Garifuna videos. Between contacting the owner of BeingGarifuna and the Garifuna
coalition, you should be able to find the Garifuna dance groups and musicians
in New York city. Many have Facebook pages some of which are noted on
BeingGarifuna.com There are also live Garifuna dance groups in Miami, in Los
Angeles, and in Seattle.
James Lowell’s
new movie. He is a Belizean Garifuna musician living in New York. He is part of
the Endangered language Alliance of Dr. Daniel Kaufman and there is a video of
him teaching Garifuna and an interview with him on the Endangered Language
Alliance’s website. (they also have a video about teaching Nahuatl in New York
city, where 800 languages are spoken, and it is the graveyard of many
languages). He has been interviewed on
NPR about his work saving the Garifuna language in new York and he was in a
video with Garifuna jazz singer Lucy blanco about the language. Contact him
through the endangered Language Alliance. His movie was scheduled to play at
the Garifuna film festival in Los Angeles in 2013 but for some reason it did
not. The film festival has a website.
There is also a Honduran film festival in new York city, and some
Garifunas present short films in new York as part of the Afro-latin American
forum activities in New York City. Belize does have a film festival in Belize.
There was also a Garifuna video presented at the Afro-Latino Forum in New York
City.
Univision/Fusion
TV show Medicina Desconocida (Strange medicine in fusion’s English version)
This is
directed by a Guatemalan Female Director who believes in traditional medicine.
The show includes a section on Guatemalan Garifuna medicine and spiritual
values and use of plants called Magia Garifuna. There were also sections on
Mayan medicine, and the use of rattle snake to cures from Chiquimula and Zacapa
areas of Guatemala. They are also going to include shows on alternative
medicine traditions in the States. 12 shows were produced in both English and
Spanish versions. Just the titles of the shows indicate some cultural
sensitivity or appropriateness issues especially between translations, that
both Garifunas and non Garifunas have remarked on. This show is currently being
aired on Univision, it started in February 2014. It has already played on
Fusion. Univision usually lets the TV show play during the season, and then
makes the whole season available in DVD format.
Video of
the life of Honduran Garifuna Painter
Cruz Bermudez and Guillermo Yuscaran by Danish TV and Honduran TV show on Cruz
Bermudez’s family. Guillermo Yuscaran (William Lewis, an American citizen,
resident in Honduras) has written books about Garifunas and he has a Honduran Garifuna wife from the Triunfo
de la Cruz area.
10. Videos by the Comite de Emergencia Garifuna
from Witness.org
Witness.org
also had early Afro-Brazilan protests of their houses being torn down for the
World cup that were ignored.
When the
river Meets the Sea, about Santa Rosa deAguan before and after hurricane Mitch.
Some anthropologists study disaster capitalism and some geographers study about
disasters like floods and washing away of towns due to hurricanes and floods,
so this is an interesting money to see that.
Lucha
Garifuna/Garifunas Holding Ground-About the Illegal highway between Ciriboya
iriona and Sico and the rio Platano biosphere. There are many stories related
to this including this illegal highway eventually became a major route for
illegal cutting of hardwoods and for drugs. This movie won first prize at a
Latin American Environmental Film Festival at Tulane. These two videos are sold together for $20 on
one DVD in either Spanish or English from Witness.org which is based in
Brooklyn, NY. Honduras This Week did a lot of articles related to the situations
shown in these videos, and about the organization which did them which went on
to be semi-finalist for the UNDP Equator Prize, speak at COP-7 and other
international forums including the World Bank and UNDP in New York City and to
tsunami victims in India and Sri Lanka for suggestions how to recover from
disasters. They were on the board of GROOTS, an NGO in New York working with
Women especially after disasters, and they were part of Huairou an organization
of female oriented NGO’s and the Comite was recognized as a “Best practices”
organization by them and were featured in the newsletters of their funders like
Cottonwood Foundation and AJWS. Witness.org also have some exciting videos
related to the World Cup in Rio in 2014 at least a year before the current
crisis and the issues of moving out of Afro-Brasilians before construction and
then for control. There are shipping charges.
It is better to call them rather than to email, as they often do not
answer the email on the website.
8. Video of the play Louvagabu.
Another
example of including Garifuna language, dance, history and culture in a work by
a non-Garifuna is a play by Rafael Murillo Selva. He is considered Honduras’ most famous
playwright and although he wrote several plays, his masterpiece is a play he
wrote with the Garifuna, Louvagabu or the Other Side Faraway in 1980. The
actors are all Garifuna originally from the village of Guadelupe about 14 km
west of Trujillo. They formed a theater
troupe called “Superación Guadelupe”.
The play shows the story of the formation of the Garifunas on Saint
Vincent with the Indians intermarrying with the Africans and having Black
children. Then it shows how they were forced to leave San Vicente after their
defeat by the English. There is a
Garifuna wake and the women sing and dance punta and the men drum and dance
around them. There is an ongoing story
about how the Garifunas of Guadelupe are trying to get a road. They visit Honduran government officials who
are corrupt and want bribes and even their secretaries are corrupt and want
bribes but say “la ley es dura pero es la ley” The law is hard, but it is the
law, when they ask for bribes. This was the motto of FUSEP, the Honduran police.
A son in the States sends a letter to his illiterate mother delivered by a
postman who travels on foot from village to village and so can not stop to read
the mail. The son says in the letter “I
am sending money for the road.” The
mother says, “The road! What about me?”
Over half of the dialog is in Garifuna.
A video was made of the play, the first video in Honduras about the
Garifuna.
For over
18 years this play toured the world being shown primarily at theater or other
festivals. Over 1,000 presentations were done before the playwright decided to
retire the play. The Honduran government
gave new cement block houses to the participants in the play in Guadelupe to
show appreciation for their many years of work.
But people still wanted to see the play after it had been retired. Even though Guadelupe was previously considered
a traditional village, and the actors and actresses had worked for 18 years
presenting in Garifuna, when the playwright went back to recruit their children
or grandchildren to be in the play, most of the young people did not speak
enough Garifuna to be able to act in the play. The road had been put in,
Ladinos now lived all along the road and between the Garifuna villages near
Guadelupe and on their agricultural lands and in the hills behind them. Right
now Canadians are investing in the areas around Guadelupe including a $70
million proposed resort and according to rumors the Mexican drug cartel. Finally the director was able to find enough actors and actresses
to put on the play, as the new cast was able to put on the play for the
presentation of Honduran Garifuna Salvador Suazo’s new Garifuna-Garifuna
Garifuna-Spanish dictionary in San Pedro Sula in 2012. But in real life, as in the fictional story
of the movie ”Garifuna in Peril”, the beautiful and famous traditional culture
and language of the Garifunas is indeed threatened and in peril. The person who
could help you get a copy of this video is Antonieta Maximo who is friends with
Rafael Murillo Selva. He has done other Garifuna plays like Danza de las Almas with
a group in Triumfo de la Cruz and a play about AIDS with Miskito and
Garifunastudents at the Normal in Tegucigalpa which included Honduran
anthropologist and University of South Florida doctoral student Geraldina
Tercero’s work on AIDS and the Garifunas influenced,but none of them have
reached the level of fame of Louvagabu.
13. The Garifuna Journey DVD
This is a
video that tells the history of the Garifunas from St.Vincent to Honduras an
spreading across Central America. I think Sabashas been asked to speakprior to
its presentation one. This is a
documentary. The Garifunas give it good reviews. The cost is $150 for colleges and
universities. (less for public libraries, high schools and community groups). Distributed by new Day Films of Harriman, New
York. You can order online. http://www.newday.com/films/GarifunaJourney.com.htm
There is
also a new film Yarumein. Yarumein or
Yarumain is the name of the Island of Saint Vincent where the Garifunas came
from.
14. Doris
Stone’s movie of Honduras
This
movie was made in about 1970. It shows Garifuna villages before the houses all
changed due to remesas sent back and before hurricane Fifi in 1974 which is
when most Garifunas switched to cinder block houses if they could. The person
who has a copy of this movie on his computer is Dr. Jorge Alberto Amaya, the
UNAH and UPN history professor. I have
his email.
15. Video
of Wendy Griffin and Adalid Martinez’s presentations in bilingual form on Maya
chorti medicine and the Garifuna midwife project and the Modern public health
issues of Modern Honduran Indians and blacks from the Western Regional
International health Conference at the Unviersity of Washington, Seattle, April
2014. Adalid Martinez spoke at the
SALALM conference in 2013 on the Maya Chorti. Also available is the audio file
available of an interview between Adalid Martinez and Padre Fausto milla about
medicinal plants and the need for pure water and good seeds and good food by Padre
Fausto Milla a retired Honduran priest. Padre Fausto’s medicinal plant clinic
using Western Honduran traditional medicine was able to cure Adalid Martinez of
lung cancer 14 years ago, when the hospital in San Pedro Sula sent him home to
die. His experience of being cured of lung cancer by traditional Western
hondruan medicine is the subject of Adalid Martinez’s book La casa de salud de
Padre Fausto which the librero literature de vientos tropicales has a few
copies. See Wendy Griffin’s blog
Padre
Fausto’s organization IHESCO had troubles with the Honduran government of Juan
Orlando Hernandez as it was on the list of the more than 5,000 NGO’s whose
corporate charter or personaria juridicas are being cancelled by the Honduran
government. See sergiobahr’s blog for the list from the whole Gazeta. Padre
Fausto’s organization has a website. He
said that his personaria juridica was given back by Juan Orlando’s government. Many
of the organizations that work for clean water, safe agriculture, good seeds,
sustainable land use, medicinal plants,such as Red Comal are on the list, as is
NABIPLA the organization of the black Bay islanders, and FUCAGUA the agency
that supposedly takes care of the Trujillo area protected areas where the ZEDE
Puerto Castilla and Trujillo is supposedly going in. In addition to the US
supporting big companies which produce seeds like Monsanto and the companies
that distribute them like Salvadoran former President Cristiani, associated
with right wingdeath squads, Padre Fausto has additional problems as he, like
the Lencas and the Garifunas filed legal suits saying the laws regarding the
Model Cities were unconstitutional and that the former Honduran president Pepe
lobo, the current Honduran president Juan Orlando hernandez, and the 124
members of the Honduran congress were guilty of treason, for approving the laws
changing the constitution to let these Model Cities (now called ZEDE) exist
(the constitution says that these articles of the constitution can only be
changed by constitutional assembly) and for giving away sovereignity for giving
concessions to 56 rivers, mining concesions to one third of the territory of
Honduras and even the wind on top of holy lenca sites (this was under a law
called the unused resources of the state los bienes osivos del Estado) and for
the Model cities. This case was found that in fact the change was
constitutional on the Saturday before Easter, and so things continue on their
process. El Heraldo has photos of both Padre Fausto Milla and the Lencas with
their lawyer presenting their legal case to the courts accompanied by the
lawyer in the Tierra Negra video of Telesur who speaks about Model cities.
Padre Fausto Milla also raised the issues of narcotrafficantes de alto vuelo,
the people with millions from drug trafficking on Xiomara Castro’s presidential
ticket and also asked about campaing finance to Xiomara Castro and Juan Orlando
Hernandez. They chose not to answer him. His assistant has had to seek
political asylym in Spain. See the Food
First campaign on their website about petitioning John Kerry not require that
El Salvador that they allow the import of US seeds, in order to be eligible for
220 million dollars in millennium challenge funds. There are good articles on
the Internet about Padre Fuasto Milla’s work and one of his books is available
through the librero or book distributor Libros Centroamericanos, and two
versions of his book are in US university libraries. There is photo of Padre
Fausto Milla on the cover of Adalid Martinez’s book which is in the press
release about his talk on Maya Chorti traditional medicine at the western
Regional International health Conference at the UW in April 2014, also with
photos of Pech and Garifunas affected by the Model city or ZEDE project on my
blog in English www.healthandhonduranindians.blogspot.com Padre Fausto Milla also headed an alternative
Comision de la Verdad (the Truth Commission) after the 2009 coup. That report had been up on the Vos del
Soberano website, but the website seems to have had that section attacked. This
website also has the photo with President Obama saying I have just two words
for you -- attack drones. On the Southcom website they talk about testing
nanosatellites (drones) with GPS under 3 layers of canopy (very high, high, and
lower trees) and public private ventures, including specifically in Honduras.
See also the ZEDE website for public private ventures, and Danira Miranda’s
book about the Wikileak about developing the Mosquitia through public private
ventures. El Heraldo is also following the issue of a new government agency for
public private ventures. Apparantly the Centroamerica Indigena digital mapping
project is to test the GPS and drones under the canopy in the Rio Platano
Biosphere and the Tawahka biosphere,
with bilingual Indian university students of the UPN holding the GPS’s,
because the University of Kansas has a policy it is too dangerous to take
university students into Honduras even to Copan Ruinas. Radiance Technologies
seems to be the partner for this part of the public private venture.
15. Medios del
Pueblo (audio files and some photos) and RealNews.com and UNAH Videos
Realnews.com
has done a 2012 video on the militarization of the Mosquitia which includes photos
of the Joint Task Force Bravo sign on the Caratasca lagoon, the Miskitos
carrying their things on their backs and a spokeswoman saying, “The people are
leaving almost voluntarily”, information on the Public Private memo to develop
the Mosquitia which WikiLeaks released info on in 2009 and information on oil
in the area,so it is a good complement to Danira Miralda’s book La Guerra de
Baja Intensidad y los Pueblos originarios Parte I. They
also did a report on the Garifuna’s land situation in the Trujillo area in
2013. In the Wikipedia article about Realnews.com it mentions a Canadian film
maker who is finishing a film Resistencia, now called Tierra Fertil about the conflict about the lower Aguan River
(Bajo Aguan). That film has a Facebook page.
MediosdelPueblo
did a series of training workshops to produce videos and radio reports and have
worked in the San Juan Tela area where the Garifunas are struggling with Jaime
Rosenthal, in the Sulaco, Yoro area, in the Rio Blanco area where the Lencas
have been protesting about the dam to be built there for over a year, and worked with the Garifunas in Trujillo in
2013.. They also worked with the Lencas of Rio Blanco, Intibuca and did some interesting audio interviews like
the Lencas ideas about Intercultural education. There is a mediosdelpueblo.com
website.
The UNAH
film crews filmed part of the Central American Linguists (ACALING) Conference which was in Tegucigalpa
in August 2013There was a very interesting forum on bilingual intercultural
education as part of the conference, where representatives of each ethnic group
spoke which was very interesting and the Black English speaker teacher Diana
Beneth was particularly upset that no one in the capital had heard of Black
English speakers on the Bay islands since she arrived in the capital. The film
crews videoed the craft display we had, but did not speak to the Pech or the Garifunas or Tawahkas who had
crafts for sale. ACALING has a website
which denounces the current Centroamerica Indigena mapping project by the
Department of Defense.
Garifuna Videos
on the Garifuna Coalition website in New York city including Aurelio Martinez
singing Yarumein, the Garifuna national anthem,
and the Honduran government’s use of Garifuna dances to attract tourists
to Honduras from the official government website Let’s Go Honduras. This is a
theme in Keri Brondo’s book Land Grab on the Garifunas of the Hog keys and
Sambo Creek area. The Sambo Creek area will probably be included in the ZEDE La
Ceiba and there is also a proposed ZEDE
Santos guardiola for all of the Bay Islands, not just the Santos Guardiola
municipio where the Garifunas of Punta
Gorda live.. The videos Historia de Sambo Creek and Historia de Corozal available on www.garistore.com include a lot of dance cuts including part of a chugu and stories about Garifuna dance clubs. The one on Corozal is actually a little better for music and dance.
Luna
films
They have
a new film about the Garifunas of Nicaragua which is unusual. It got good
reviews at the university in Bluefields, Nicaragua. They also have a film on
the Creoles of Nicaragua. I saw the
information about the film on BeingGarifuna.com so maybe he knows how to
contact them or the people at urracan University in Nicaragua might know how to
contact them.
Monico
productions
They have
for sale on their website Garifuna dance videos including Moors and Christians
from Trujillo and Fedu from Santa Fe, very authentic Garifuna traditions. They
also have a new group Balet Folklorico Garifuna Wani from Santa Fe, which is an
interesting project with Garifuna young people in a zone highly affected by
tourism. The Moors and Christians dance is threatened by the fact Garifuna
young people are not learning the brass instruments the Garifunas adopted to
these dances like trumpet or saxophone, including an 1890’s dance tune is one
of the main theme songs. Fedu is threatened because the young people are not
learning the Garifuna language which
will be fatal to Garifuna traditional music and religion. Just the dugu ancestor
ceremony shown in the El Espiritu de Mi Mama video requires three days and two
nights of dancing to songs sung in Garifuna, only accompanied by percussion
instruments. All the melody and the counter rhythms are carried by the women’s
voices.
Presbyterian
church USA (PCUSA) Hunger program’s webinar on Land Grabbing from 2014, which
included the Gran Chaco in South America, the Lenca and Garifuna struggles in
Honduras, and the sruggles in Cameroon with African palms. The latter is
related to REDD which are a serious problem and are denounced by organizations
like the Indigenous Environmental Network (which has a website) and a video done
in Central America by the Friends of the Earth which is on vimeo. The
Presbyterian Church USA ‘s Hunger program has a website. They also did a fact
sheet related to this webinar. Their Honduran partner was Agricultural Missions
International, which also has a website.
The
inauguration of the Mormon temple in Tegucigalpa
David Flores
the author of la Evolucion Historica de la Danza Folklorica Hondureña
choreographed 6,000 Honduran young people to dance Honduran folk dances for the
opening of the Mormon temple in Teguicgalpa in 2013. It was televised worldwide
by BYU TV, and it was televised twice on Honduran TV nationwide. In a country famous for young people killing
each other or other people, it was exciting to see the 6,000 young people doing
something positive and beautiful, which they had spent considerable time,
effort and mony to carry out as every dancer was in full costume. One of the
dances was Mascaro, the John Canoe or Warrior’s dance of the Garifunas also
shown in the Garifuna in peril movie, and discussed in Wendy Griffin’s talks at
SALALM in2013 and 2014 as part of final battle of Chief Satuye. This dance was
done at the Temple inauguration by both Garifunas and ladinos, and was lead by
the Mormom Bishop of Trujillo Juan Arzu a Garifuna, a long time Mascaro dancer
in the community of Guadelupe, and he is co-author of Los Garifunas de Honduras
also, and the Witness .org videos as part of the Garifuna Emergency Committee. David
Flores and BYU TV probably both have copies of this video, which made many
people cry with emotion. David also has videos of other kinds of Honduran
dances and Cd’s of Honduran music to accompany folk dances. The Atlanta African
dance company also does this dance which they say is from the Songhay region of
Africa, north of what is now Ghana. There is a HondurasWeekly.com article about
this presentation and the Mormon church in Honduras.
Wendy
Griffin will have available shortly the bonus version of the 2000 video
Discover the Rio Platano biosphere: In Search of Ciudad blanca. “Discover the
Rio Platano biosphere in Search of Ciudad Blanca”with Garifuna Roberto Marin
from Plaplaya and Wendy Griffin, Tony Barrado and Ted Danger, there are lots of
good comments about archaeology, looting, forest destruction, lack of
protection of protected areas, Mesoamerican, probably Nahua, archaeology in the
area, and ends with Garifuna music by Garifuna BOYZ and some phrases in Miskito
at the big rock on the Rio Platano that some say is the umbilical cord, that
this is where people came out when they cameupfrom below when the lower world
was destroyed in a judgement (un juicio)
. This video is on Youtube in 4 parts in English and one part in Spanish. Wendy
Griffin is in the process of making a bonus DVD with extra footage of NE
Honduran archaeology in private collections. Available in English or in
Spanish. The website associated with this video is
This
video also gives a lot of context to the recent book Jungleland about looking
for the Ciudad Blanca by Chris Stewart, an editor of the Wall Street journal,
and following Theodore morde’s foot steps in looking for it.Wikipedia in
English has a fairly good article on the Ciudad blanca, which among other
things is supposedly where Ce Acatl Topoltzin Quetzalcoatl the last Toltec king
died and was buried. This video and the book
Los Pech de Honduras and related Honduras This Week and
HondurasWeekly.com articles gave the name of Ruta Kao Kamasa to the route to
and through the Rio Platano Biosphere. The information on Ruta Kao Kamasa has
appeared in tourist brochures in Honduras and in Honduran newspapers, including
in speeched by the current President that maybe some problems are coming up in
implementing this plan fully. This Ruta
Kao Kamasa seems to refer to the plan to also connect Olancho (ZEDE Santa Maria
de Real and or Manto) to the Coast through the Rio Platano Biosphere (ZEDE Sico
Paulaya) and to Trujillo Puerto Castilla area (ZEDE Trujillo Puerto Castilla).
While obstentiously for tourists, and “resorts” are along this route, this
route seems principally to improve moving drugs, and taking out minerals and
wood and illegal archaeological artifacts. In the descriptions on the Honduran
government website about the ZEDE, they also include the information on
criminality, which is high like 79%, which would be odd if you were trying to
recruit legitimate investors. Also the ZEDE are specifically divided up the
rivers, and the rivers, as well as the roads, and the borders, and the drug
airports are all clearly shown, with the possibility to add information on
patrimonio cultural archaeological sites and minerals. These maps seem to be
what the mapping program Centroamerica Indigena by US Dod Minerva Funding with
the University of Kansas seem to be feeding into.
MASTA,
the Miskito organization, has a website
with its unhappiness over the current ICF and Honduran authority proposals in
the Mosquitia.
No hay comentarios.:
Publicar un comentario